Jerry Seib: Obama's Telephone Diplomacy in Iraq

8/13/2014 6:00AM

President Obama and Vice President Biden have placed many long-distance phone calls to ensure a peaceful and legitimate transition of power in Iraq, from current Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to his likely successor, Haider Al-Abadi. WSJ's Jerry Seib explains. Photo: Associated Press

This transcript has been automatically generated and may not be 100% accurate.

I ... so when his agent Global instant Internet communications what's been the most important diplomatic tool of communication Washington the last forty eight hours ... it's been that's the old fashioned telephone and here's why ... the White House has been dialing Baghdad furiously last couple of days trying to cement in place the selection ... of a successor to Prime Minister an Oreo Maliki ... a leader the US thinks is become too sectarian to do this is too much of a Shiite leader ... not enough of a nationally ... known finally appear that the Shiite parties in Iraq's parliament were ready to nominate a successor to Mr Maliki the movie on him picking Hider L a body to be the next prime minister ... the White House jumped in quickly to make sure that that process continued and it was clear that Mr Talabani ... had the U S seal of approval so here's the White House phone logs for the last two days and indicates that between them ... present Obama and Vice President Biden have called ... Iraqi leaders five times ... to make the same message clear to everybody to Iraq's president ... to the speaker the Parliament into Mr alibi himself that the US ... is the seal of approval to Mr Talabani ... and what's his selection to move ahead quickly to so that there's a successor to Prime Minister Maliki in place in ... footnote though those calls are really important from the U S but in a clean port of call probably came from Iran ... whose leaders indicated that they too went in the past Mr Maliki and move on to somebody else ... and that's an important voice that indicated his loss support is most the most important places ... us in Iraq ...